I’m in a cherry mood. And I’ve been wanting to make cherry sorbet for a while now, except the recipes I’ve been running into seem to produce a light rose-colored sorbet, and I wanted to replicate the deep-red cherry sorbet that I tasted in Italy years ago. I didn’t quite achieve it with this experiment, some of the smoothness is lacking, but maybe just a couple more tweaks — perhaps the addition of corn syrup — will do it. Will post an updated recipe when I get to it! Meanwhile, enjoy

1 cup dried sour cherries
1 cup cherry lambic
up to 1 cup simple syrup made from 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water (instructions below)
enough fresh or frozen cherries to make 4 cups total
the juice of 1 lemon
enough water to balance sweet/sour

Soak the dried cherries in the cherry lambic overnight.

Make the simple syrup by combining sugar and water in a saucepan. Heat, stirring gently. until sugar is fully dissolved. Let cool and set aside, covered.

Puree the soaked cherries in blender and add in half the simple syrup, the lemon juice, plus enough cherries to make 4 cups total. Taste and adjust to your desired sweetness/tartness using the rest of the simple syrup or water, to make about 4 1/2 cups total.

Run blender again until everything is smooth. Freeze in ice-cream maker using manufacturer directions, about 20 minutes. This should produce a sorbet that’s still fairly liquid. Freeze in airtight container until firm. It will not be firm like ice cream. Leave out 5 minutes or so until scoopable before serving.

One mistake I made with the first batch was putting in the whole cup of simple syrup immediately. I did not figure on the dried cherries being so sweet, so the resulting product was much sweeter than I had planned.

//Montmorency cherry juice consumption improved the recovery of isometric muscle strength after intensive exercise perhaps owing to the attenuation of the oxidative damage induced by the damaging exercise.//

Due to the high ORAC (oxygen radical absorption capacity) values of Montmorency Cherry, the powdered fruit extracts are also placed in capsules as organic health supplement/vitamins.